Just where did we get the evil we associate the the legends of vampires? Well, it was the Romanian Prince Vlad Tepes, also know as “Dracula,” which translates to “son of the Dragon.” Vlad pcked p the nickname “Vlad the Impaler,” due to his means of dispatching his (Islamic) Turkish enemies.

Was Vlad some random nutcase? Possibly, but he was also a hostage“guest” of the Ottoman Empire, from 11 to about 17 years old, to keep his father’s commitment to the Turks intact. Maybe his vacation in Turkey had something to do with it:

We know little about Vlad’s early childhood in Sighisoara. His mother was apparently Cneajna, of a Moldavian princely family. He was the second of three sons; his brothers were Mircea and Radu. The family remained in Sighisoara until 1436 when Vlad Dracul moved to Targoviste to become voivode of Wallachia. Here, young Vlad was educated at court, with training that was appropriate for knighthood. But his father’s political actions were to have major consequences for him and his younger brother Radu. On the death of Sigismund, Vlad Dracul ranged from pro-Turkish policies to neutrality as he considered necessary to protect the interests of Wallachia. To ensure the reliability of Dracul’s support, the Sultan required that two of his sons — Vlad and Radu — be held in Turkey as guarantees that he would actively support Turkish interests. The two boys may have spent up to six years under this precarious arrangement. Young Vlad would have been about eleven years old at the time of the internment, while Radu would have been about seven. It appears that they were held for part of the time at the fortress of Egregoz, located in western Anatolia, and later moved to Sultan Murad’s court at Adrianople. The younger brother Radu, a handsome lad who attracted the attention of the future sultan, fared better than Vlad, a factor that helps explain the bitter hatred and rivalry that developed between the brothers later. Apparently, no serious physical harm came to the boys during these years of captivity, though the psychological impact on Vlad is difficult to assess. After their subsequent release in 1448, Radu chose to remain in Turkey. But Vlad returned to Wallachia to find that his father had been assassinated and his older brother Mircea buried alive by the nobles of TÃ¢rgoviste who had supported a rival claimant.

Vlad was voivode for three separate periods, totalling about seven years. Not too much is known of his first brief period of rule (in 1448). This reign was short-lived, and Vlad spent the next eight years plotting his return to power. Finally in 1456 he was successful and ruled for the next six years, the period about which most is known. After major battles against the Turks in 1462, he escaped across the mountains into Transylvania and was held as a prisoner by the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus until the mid-1470s. His recovery of the throne for a third time in 1476 was brief, for he was killed in battle during the subsequent winter.

Though Vlad was to reign for less than seven years, his reputation throughout Europe was widespread. There are several primary sources of information, which offer a variety of representations, from Vlad as a cruel, even psychopathic tyrant to Vlad as a hero who put the needs of his country above all else. Consequently, it is a virtually impossible task to reconstruct his political and military activities with certainty.

Now the “timeline” of the effects of Jihad, in my accidental iterative study recedes fro 1492 to about 1448.

Who knows, without Mohammed and his being “offened” by his rejection by his own tribe, we may not have ever heard of Bela Lugosi.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
and is filed under History.
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